Category Archives: Food

Celebrating with Bread

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Bread is a common food in every culture I can think of. One of my favorite breads from Israel is Challah Bread.

Challah is a brioche-type bread made with eggs. It is sweetened with honey and uses oil instead of the butter used in brioche. If you search for recipes, you can find many of them. And I’m sure, at least from the bakers I know, there are lots of variations of each one. I use the same recipe as my daughter, but both of us change it for different situations. The most significant difference I’ve found is the amount of honey to use.

Challah is a bread of celebration and is commonly served on Shabbat. This bread is braided into a loaf as in these pictures. Since I consider anytime I’m with family and friends as a celebration, I make it a lot.

During the celebrations of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kipper [as one of the foods used to break the fast of Yom Kipper], and Sukkot, challah is braided into a circle or a crown. The circle is studded with raisins. I also found one reference to braiding it into a crown in honor of Queen Esther on Purim.

While it isn’t tradition, I’ve found using challah as the base for cinnamon rolls can be very popular during coffee time at church.

Picture of Challah bread my daughter made.
Another picture of my daughter’s challah.

Hummus

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When I started this “Impressions of Israel” set of blogs on September 3, 2021, I shared my fear of embarrassment when I first arrived in Israel in 2008.

This blog is a continuation of that story.

After I got off the plane, I was comfortable and enjoyed what we were seeing and where we are going.

This particular day, we were walking through the Old City of Jerusalem to visit a community on the other side of the city. As we traveled a street in the Muslim quarter, we were told to move swiftly, do not stop to talk or look at anyone, and not to make eye contact with the vendors. This street was dangerous for tourists.

[Just a note here. The Old City of Jerusalem is divided into four quarters; the Muslim Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Jewish Quarter, and the Armenian Quarter. Since that trip, I have learned there is a street in each of the quarters which is considered dangerous.]

We were walking swiftly and I felt myself knocking something over. It was a small table with a bowl of hummus. I slowed down so I could help clean this up, but I was grabbed by the arm and was pulled along with the others. I was told not to worry about it because it was just a bowl of hummus.

To this day, I wonder what would have happened if I had stopped and interacted with that merchant.

This is a bowl of hummus surrounded by pita bread. The bread is dipped in the hummus while eating. Even though the second Friday of the month I like to give you a recipe, I decided not to share one this month. There are hundreds of recipes. As one person told me there are as many recipes as there are people who make hummus and even more. For example, my daughter and her husband started making hummus from a generic recipe and are adapting it to find the exact mixture of spices and ingredients that is the taste they want. The basic recipe includes chickpeas, tahini, olive oil. Any number of spices can be used for more flavor, the most common is garlic.

Salad All Day

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When I was in Israel, I love the buffet of foods at every meal. One of my favorites was the cucumber-tomato-parsley salad served at all the meals, including breakfast.

I was not used to the idea of salad at breakfast, but I discovered I like the idea.

The recipe is simple:

Salad:

  • 4 English cucumbers, diced
  • 4 Roma (plum) tomatoes, seeded and diced
  • ½ purple onion, diced
  • 1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
  • 2 tablespoons chopped garlic
  • 1 cup chopped fresh parsley
  • 3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

Dressing:

  • ½ cup olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 1 tablespoon ground black pepper

Toss all salad ingredients in a bowl. Drizzle olive oil and lemon juice over salad. Sprinkle salt and pepper over salad to taste. (Salad compliments of allrecipes.com.)

Cucumber-Tomato-Parsley Israeli Salad

I’ve tried several different recipes, but this is the one I like best.

Not Sure What to Post

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I’m really not sure what to post this week because it is the fifth Friday of the month. When I started this blog, I had a solid plan for four Fridays in a month.

First, one of the stories that holds a special place in my heart from my trips to Israel. Second, a fun story about food. Third, how things are going with my writing, especially about my book(s) about the birth of Jesus called Jesus Gets Hand-Me-Downs. And fourth, a special item for sale in Israel. But I wasn’t sure about the fifth Friday and I’m still not.

One suggestion is to do a give-away box of some of the interesting items from Israel, but I don’t have that possibility put together, largely due to cost. Another idea is to create some of my short stories, framed and suitable for hanging.

I’m still working on other ideas so I’m open to suggestions. Please send me your ideas and I’ll come up with a special gift for the originator of any I use.

Israel Food Memory

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This month rather than post a recipe for the food I loved in
Israel, I chose to post a fun memory about food. Now, I’m fairly sure this is
not traditional Israeli food, but thanks to my grandsons, I’ll always connect
it to Israel.

When our oldest grandson was thirteen, we took him on a trip to Israel. He
quickly made friends with another thirteen-year-old boy on the trip.

When they went downstairs to breakfast at the hotel the first morning, they
discovered a favorite breakfast. Pancakes with chocolate syrup. Maple syrup was
available, but it was promptly ignored in favor of chocolate.

These two teenage boys went back for helping after helping. Sometimes it was
hard to see the pancake drowning in the syrup. In fact, they didn’t eat
pancakes with chocolate syrup, they ate chocolate syrup with pancakes.

A few years later, we took our second grandson to Israel. His favorite
breakfast — pancakes with chocolate syrup.

To both boys’ disappointment, when they got back home, Mom did not serve pancakes with chocolate syrup.